Stimulus Pays Off With Obama Teachers Union Endorsement

To Biden, more dollars for the unions somehow equates to education reform. But we’ve learned over the decades that increased spending on education does not equate to increased performance in the classroom. If spending guaranteed a great public education, U.S. students would be leading the world in academic achievement. News flash – they are not even close.
Mike Reno, a former school board member from a large Michigan district, said when it came to negotiating a teachers’ contract, “there was no costing data, there was no information on how much it would increase the cost to the district, there was no financial projections, there was absolutely nothing that we could base any sort of decision on, other than ‘this is what we think we can get them to settle for.’”

In other words, teachers unions want more spending, through government grants or collective bargaining, so they can increase their salaries and get more lucrative benefits. Very little money is directed toward increasing opportunities for students. It’s simply used to reward thousands of teachers who are not getting the job done in the classroom.

The stimulus has not stimulated American education at all. But it’s stimulated the bank accounts of teachers unions, and that’s really all they care about.

That’s why the NEA has been so quick to endorse President Obama for another term.